Community grants program connects donors to needs and issues across eight counties
The only constant in life is change.
For Saul Morse and Anne Morgan who are longtime residents of Springfield, supporting local causes they care about – and nimbly adjusting their giving to address ever-changing needs in the community – is second nature.
Aiding the couple in their philanthropic giving is a donor-advised fund, the Morse/Morgan Family Fund, that they established nearly a decade ago at the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln to streamline their giving and help keep their fingers on the pulse of the greatest local needs.
“Our family has a wide range of interests, and partnering with the Community Foundation provides us with a new depth and breadth of understanding local issues and how our resources can make a difference,” said Morgan.
Morse and Morgan point to the Community Grants Program as an example of how the Community Foundation actively educates donors about current needs.
Every year, the Community Grants Program accepts funding requests up to $5,000 each for any charitable focus area that operates in Cass, Christian, Logan, Macoupin, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan, and/or Sangamon County.
Those requests are then shared with donors who have established donor-advised funds at the Community Foundation.
More: 988 becomes the new national hotline to help in mental health crises, here's how it works
“The Community Grants Program has come to play many important roles in our community,” said Morse. “It elevates shared knowledge by informing donors of needs and issues affecting our community; it kick-starts philanthropy by encouraging proactive grantmaking; and it provides a simple vehicle for donors to recommend grants, potentially partner with other donors, and know that they’re making a difference toward the causes they care about.”
Last year, 25 donor-advised funds directed more than $159,000 in grants to support 42 programs in central Illinois. The Morse/Morgan Family Fund has participated in the Community Grants Program for the last three years and in that time has directed grants to six different organizations with widely varying missions.
“The Community Grants Program allows us as donors to be responsive to local needs in a more powerful way,” said Morgan. “Each year it gets us thinking about new causes that we weren’t necessarily aware needed support.”
The deadline for applications to this year’s Community Grants Program was July 15, and donors will be reviewing the requests over the next month to consider what causes most speak to them. Grant recipients will be announced via the Community Foundation’s web site in September.
To learn more about the Community Foundation, the Community Grants Program and how to establish a donor-advised fund, visit CFLL.org or call (217) 789-4431.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Community Foundation grant program connects donors to needs
